Kilimanjaro National Park is among the many World Heritage websites anticipated to lose their glaciers by 2050.
Glaciers at many UNESCO World Heritage websites together with Yellowstone and Kilimanjaro National Park will seemingly vanish by 2050, the UN company warned Thursday, urging leaders to behave quick to save lots of the remaining.
The warning adopted a examine of 18,600 glaciers at 50 World Heritage websites—protecting round 66,000 sq. kilometres (25,000 sq. miles)—which discovered glaciers at a 3rd of the websites have been “condemned to vanish”.
The examine “reveals these glaciers have been retreating at an accelerated fee since 2000 attributable to CO2 emissions, that are warming temperatures”, UNESCO stated.
The glaciers have been dropping 58 billion tonnes of ice yearly, equal to the mixed annual water use of France and Spain, and have been liable for almost 5 p.c of noticed world sea-level rise, the company defined.
“Glaciers in a 3rd of the 50 World Heritage websites are condemned to vanish by 2050, no matter efforts to restrict temperature will increase,” UNESCO stated.
“But it’s nonetheless attainable to save lots of the glaciers within the remaining two thirds of web sites if the rise in temperatures doesn’t exceed 1.5°C in comparison with the pre-industrial interval.”
Countries have pledged to maintain world warming to 1.5 levels Celsius above pre-industrial ranges—a purpose the world is about to overlook on present emission developments.
“This report is a name to motion,” stated UNESCO head Audrey Azoulay, forward of the COP27 local weather summit in Egypt beginning on Monday.
“Only a speedy discount in our CO2 emissions ranges can save glaciers and the distinctive biodiversity that will depend on them. COP27 may have a vital position to assist discover options to this difficulty.”
In Africa, glaciers in all World Heritage websites will very seemingly be passed by 2050, together with at Kilimanjaro National Park and Mount Kenya, UNESCO warned.
In Europe, some glaciers within the Pyrenees and within the Dolomites may also most likely have vanished in three many years’ time.
The identical went for glaciers within the Yellowstone and Yosemite nationwide parks within the United States.
The melting of ice and snow is among the 10 key threats from local weather change, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report revealed in February stated.
© 2022 AFP
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Yellowstone, Kilimanjaro glaciers amongst these set to fade by 2050: UNESCO (2022, November 3)
retrieved 3 November 2022
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